Good BonesWritten by James Ijames, directed by Saheem Ali, set design by Maruti EvansThe Public Theater425 Lafayette StreetNew YorkExtended by means of October 27
A brief stroll from my condominium, a 17-story housing tower rises up from a sea of two-and three-story condominium buildings. For a very long time, its canary-yellow insulation was uncovered to passersby, however slowly the facade has come into place, changing its treacly hues with silver and salmon-colored metallic panels. Quickly, its inexperienced building shed will come right down to make method for a brand-new Burlington Coat Manufacturing facility.
Irrespective of what number of bike lanes with their oddly pungent inexperienced paint or beige cafe-by-day-wine-bar-by-night popups would possibly sign rising rents and displacement, maybe these are mere chromatic harbingers of displacement. The colour of gentrification is new-construction grey in Good Bones, a brand new play by James Ijames on stage at The Public Theater, now by means of October 27. The play’s title appears to riff off of the HGTV sequence of the identical identify, which ran for 9 seasons from 2016 by means of 2024.
The play takes place throughout a luxe kitchen renovation in an unnamed American metropolis. The context at instances feels awfully like New York however might simply as simply be San Francisco, Philadelphia, or Washington, D.C. Maruti Evans’s set design references the historic structure of The Public’s Martinson Theater on Lafayette Avenue: On stage, he creates a grand dwelling from the same fin-de-siecle period, however almost each floor is awash in grey paint. The kitchen might simply have been featured on the HGTV present.
Evans informed me he discovered inspiration from strolling round San Francisco, the place most of the metropolis’s Victorian pastel homes have been graywashed. “These lovely colours are all gone, all fully completely different. And what you don’t see is, after all, all of the those who have left, or the elements of these neighborhoods that made them neighborhoods.”
“Let It Sink Into the Earth”
The play’s central couple, householders Travis and Aisha, not too long ago moved into the traditionally Black and systematically disinvested neighborhood the place Aisha grew up. Travis is a restauranteur, promoting traditionally Black delicacies at elevated costs. Aisha works in actual property growth, assembly with neighborhood members to encourage them to assist a brand new stadium undertaking that may tear down public housing and provide questionable “relocation packages.”
They’ve moved into an enormous dwelling recalling the brownstones of Harlem or Brooklyn with deep historical past as the house of a beloved neighborhood determine from the early-Twentieth century that later grew to become a hangout for neighborhood children. These children included their contractor, Earl, who is happy by the prospect of restoring the area to its former glory.
The kitchen appears to carry particular significance for him, because it has for a lot of householders and designers all through historical past. (FLW’s fireplace, anybody?) “If I am going to a home get together, I inevitably discover myself within the kitchen, speaking to folks. It’s actually a strong area. Individuals gossip within the kitchen. Individuals collect within the kitchen at holidays.” Ijames stated. For him, the kitchen—without delay a standing image and a fire—appeared an ideal area to website the play.
Like Aisha, Earl grew up within the neighborhood, however as a substitute of leaving to work for actual property builders, Earl has remained and contributed to his neighborhood, constructing Little Free Libraries and organizing block events. (Although his work as a contractor, upselling purchasers on $40 drawer pulls, additionally not directly helps the gentrification course of alongside.) The place Earl sees neighborhood solidarity, Aisha sees the violence she skilled as a baby. The place Earl sees histories of perseverance, Aisha sees many years of disinvestment and dying.
For Earl, the way in which to restore the wrongs of segregation and ghettoization is to strengthen neighborhood relationships. For Aisha, it’s by turning the neighborhood right into a clean slate. Within the play’s last moments, she says: “I would like it gone as a result of all I’ve ever identified it do is take and steal and kill and drain. Let it sink into the earth.” The neighborhood is haunted by the sins of the previous—the “bones” within the play’s title is likely to be greater than architectural underpinnings.
“Saran-wrapping folks and locations”
A problem for set designers on a play like Good Bones is remodeling the area all through a comparatively brief operating time. Kitchen remodels can take weeks and even months, however on this play, the work has to happen inside two hours. Along with the prefabricated cupboards that Evans sourced from IKEA (one other central participant in gentrification-core aesthetics) he employs plastic sheeting to obscure elements of the set: sheets slowly are eliminated all through to play to disclose extra grey cabinetry and home equipment.
Evans referred to the plastic sheeting, a disposable product designed to insulate folks from the mess of building, as “the final word capitalist materials, Saran-wrapping folks and locations.” The sheeting additionally serves as a persistent reminder of the kitchen’s unfinished state. Evans remarked on the uncomfortable feeling of residing amid this uncertainty: “It’s dusty with gross plastic in all places, and your loved ones hates you as a result of there’s plastic in all places.”
However within the play’s last scene, the large, superb kitchen has come absolutely into view. In a single second, Aisha climbs onto the counter and appears dwarfed by the size of the cabinetry. (Evans remarked that to cope with the size of the theater area, he needed to look past the small brownstone kitchens of New York Metropolis to cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco the place a lot bigger kitchens are life like.)
Simply as the total extent of the kitchen’s grey design comes into focus, so too does the total extent of the harms of each disinvestment and gentrification. The neighborhood has suffered many years of segregation and inadequate public providers, and the households that reside there are coping with the results. However a big megaproject shifting in and displacing residents doesn’t appear to supply a lot hope for a extra equitable future.
Whereas a earlier manufacturing of Good Bones in Washington, D.C.’s ending scene jumped three years forward to indicate audiences a joyful future the place every thing labored out, this one options a wholly new ending that provides no straightforward options, leaving its characters sorting by means of gentrification’s ethical grey muck.
Kevin Ritter-Jung is a researcher and author in Queens, New York. He’s the managing editor of City Omnibus.
